President Lincoln suggests to Congress ways gradually to end slavery in the United States

03/06/1862

President Lincoln sent a message to Congress that recommended a joint resolution on the thorny question of ending slavery. He wrote that the federal government "ought to cooperate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery" and suggested economic aid to any such state "to compensate for the inconvenience, public and private, produced by such change of system." The Congress passed a joint resolution embracing the method but the plan met with little enthusiasm in the slave states. (By John Osborne)